


Kids of the Western Sun

by MathildaHilda



Category: Red Dead Redemption, Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, John is a little shit, My attempt at fluff, Original Character(s), and Arthur's not much better, pre-game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2019-09-30 14:39:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17225921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathildaHilda/pseuds/MathildaHilda
Summary: Excerpt from Ch1;“A thief and murderer, my ass.” Arthur’d grumbled, arms crossed and hat tipped forward over his forehead. “Now you just gotta to stand there and look as pitiful as always and the ladies’ll just dance right up to ya.” He continued and swatted at the boy’s attempt to kick his shin. The second attempt was cut short, however, when Miss Grimshaw gripped him roughly by the ear and Hosea chided him loudly for moving.***A collection of events that transpires before the start of Red Dead Redemption II, where brothers are assholes and robbing isn't always the easiest of things.





	1. sparrows and crows

**Author's Note:**

> Read the tags!
> 
> It's ONLY implied and a bunch of guesswork by the characters. Nothing of the sort happens in here!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “A thief and murderer, my ass.” Arthur’d grumbled, arms crossed and hat tipped forward over his forehead. “Now you just gotta to stand there and look as pitiful as always and the ladies’ll just dance right up to ya.” He continued and swatted at the boy’s attempt to kick his shin. The second attempt was cut short, however, when Miss Grimshaw gripped him roughly by the ear and Hosea chided him loudly for moving.
> 
> ***
> 
> In which little boys can't fly, a trip to the shop becomes something else and Arthur's never really learnt how one takes care of a little brother

They didn’t exactly grow up together, but that didn’t stop John from dragging Arthur with him to that birch tree near camp and balance on its branches like it was a Goddamn tightrope, trip and render his right arm useless for two months and under Miss Grimshaw’s constant, unapproving gaze.

“A thief and murderer, my ass.” Arthur’d grumbled, arms crossed, and hat tipped forward over his forehead. “Now you just gotta to stand there and look as pitiful as always and the ladies will just dance right up to ya.” He continued and swatted at the boy’s attempt to kick his shin. The second attempt was cut short, however, when Miss Grimshaw gripped him roughly by the ear and Hosea chided him loudly for moving.

Dutch barked a laugh from where he leaned forward toward a mirror, carefully maneuvering a blade across his chin and cheeks, avoiding the black mass across his upper lip. Cocking his head back and tipping his hat the other way, Arthur stepped away from one of John’s more successful attempts at kicking him, just barely scuffing the shaft of his boot, and looked to Dutch.

“You got another one of those, Dutch?” He asked, lending half an ear toward John’s continuing yelps as Hosea finally twisted the bone in the right place. Dutch wiped his cheek with a towel, shook his head and turned, holding the blade out to him in offering.

“Nah. Was thinking of goin’ into town anyway. Ain’t much meat around here anyhow.” Arthur shook his head before levelling it in the direction of the woods around them. Dutch shrugged and folded the blade, tucking it neatly in the shaving kit.

“Can I come?” Piped a small voice from behind them and Arthur almost let slip a laugh when he saw the pale face and tucked arm against the chest. Instead, he raised an eyebrow and raised his chin.

“You and what arm, kid?”

“I ain’t a kid.” John grumbled, voice cracking at the end. If it was from a change in the voice or if it was from a pain in the arm was hard to tell, but it only made Arthur’s eyebrow raise higher up.

“Sure, you’re not.” He grumbled in reply and turned toward his tent. He’d barely had time to strap his weapons belt around his waist before Hosea was walking toward him, the kid battling insults with Miss Grimshaw on what was best for the arm.

 

“Take the kid, Arthur.” Was all Hosea said, not even bothering to look back when the sound of a cuffing was heard, and Miss Grimshaw walked away. The kid worried the back of his head with pouted look that made him  _undoubtedly_ look like a kid.

“Jesus, Hosea. And here I thought you’d be on my side.” Hosea turned squinted eyes toward him, hand raised to block the sunlight. “Am I not always on your side, Arthur?”

“Not this time, you aren’t.” Hosea sighed in reply and tapped the toe of his shoe against the makeshift table. His mother’s photograph wobbled dangerously. “It’d be best for the boy, ‘s all I’m saying. Miss Grimshaw is kind and firm, but maybe a real experience following this is what he needs?”

“The kid fell five feet because he thought he was a sparrow. Ain’t that experience enough?” Arthur paused for a moment, saw Hosea hesitate to speak, and continued. “And on what horse am I going to bring him on, hey? Daisy’s in too bad of a way to even make it past springtime and the kid ain’t got a pony for himself yet.”

“You’ve seen him ride, Arthur. He’s very good as it is. And how were you expecting to get into town, anyway?  _Walk?”_

Hosea got him there and he sat down on his bunk with a sigh. “I said I was  _plannin’_ on going into town, I never said how I’d get there.” They were silent for a moment before Hosea’s eyes shone up the same way as they always seemed to do when he got an idea.

“Ask Mr. Harris. He ought to have a steed he doesn’t need.”

“You want me to take a man’s dead wife’s horse, barely a week after she’s passed?” Arthur asked, bracing a hand on his knee as he bent his head to look up at the man. Hosea shrugged, raising his hands skyward as he went. “It’s not like he’s going to need it.”

Arthur rubbed at his eyes, looked up again and trailed his eyes to where he knew he’d find Mr. Harris; cross-legged in the shade, hands folded in prayer and eyes closed, facing the cross they’d dug into the ground.

“Alright.” He raised to his feet and tipped his hat back. “I’ll ask him. But I ain’t promising I’ll take the kid with me.” He said, nodding his head toward John, who was doing his very best to figure out what the Hell he was going to do with the loose sleeve of his shirt. Hosea nodded and was gone from his tent before he could change his mind.

Walking up slowly, he crossed his chest; North to South, East to West, before he crouched down beside the grieving man. Tipping the hat off of his head, he cleared his throat as carefully as he could without startling the man. He managed the feat anyway, as the man whipped his head around in alarm and stared at him with wide, green eyes.

“‘s just me, Mr. Harris.” He said, dropping the hat to the ground. “Mr. Morgan.” Mr. Harris smiled with quivering lips and looked ready to burst into tears again. “I’m sorry to have to ask you this, but,” he paused and watched the man with wary eyes. Mr. Harris was known for his temper, and he wasn’t exactly in the best way at the moment.

“Is there any way I could be able to borrow Missus Catherine’s horse? It’s just a quick one into town and,” he scolded himself inwardly to have to bring it up. “The kid’d need a change of scenery.” He said and nodded toward John, who was now trying to tie his shirtsleeve together with one hand. Safe to say; it wasn’t going very well.

Mr. Harris followed his nod, saw John’s struggle, and looked back to him.

“I-I suppose.” He mumbled and nodded, eyes gluing themselves to the ground between Arthur’s feet. “Thank you, sir.” He clasped the man’s shoulder tentatively, watched him jump slightly and raised to his feet.

“What the Hell are you doing?” John’s eyes looked about ready to pop out of his head and his cheeks were flushed from both pain and the internal struggle not to make it any worse. “How come humans don’t have three arms? Or even four? It’d make shit like this easier.”

“You got two feet, don’t you? Play at being a monkey, maybe then it’ll work out for ya’.” Arthur replied and gripped the sleeve from him. “Now stop flailing like a caught fish before you make it worse.” He said, unbuttoning the shirt as best he could while John kept trying to tie a knot on his sleeve. “What are you-” was as far as he got when Arthur was quick to turn the right sleeve into the shirt, spin him around and shove his left arm into it again.

“Helping you. What does it look like?” He muttered and helped him button it as best he could. John’s eyes were impossibly wide, and it would’ve almost looked comical, had it not been for the notion that very few people had helped the kid at any point throughout his life.

“Now, come on.” He said and took wide strides away from the kid, who was, for some reason, still standing stock still and mouth open in the middle of camp. Cocking his head to the side, Arthur kicked at the ground and sent pebbles toward the kid until he looked up. “You gonna sleep, catch some flies or join me into town?” It took another three seconds before the kid was running, pants too long and almost making him trip on himself.

“Tuck those pants in your boots, kid. Unless you want to catch a stirrup.” Arthur collected his saddle from his tent, looked longingly at Daisy’s spotted back, before he took another couple of wide strides toward Missus Harris’ black gelding. The horse looked up at them and cocked his ears, before sticking his nose back into the trough of water.

Arthur listened, not without a little amusement, to how the kid tried his best tucking his cuffs in his boots, almost tripped again and cursed up a storm. “We only got the one horse, so behave or I’ll hogtie you to the back.”

“You can’t hogtie me when I only have one arm.” John Smartass Marston shot back. “You sure about that, kid?” Arthur asked as he secured a strap. There wasn’t a reply.

“Alright. Front or back?” He asked and stepped back, eyeing the kid’s handiwork with his boots. It looked pretty ridiculous, but that wasn’t new when it came to Marston. “Can I ride?” Arthur, who had anticipated the question, shook his head and sighed as he swung into the saddle, the horse shifting underneath him.

“What do you think, kid?” He was pouting again when he reached his hand up and nodded to the back. The kid was going on thirteen or fourteen, he wouldn’t really tell them which, so it was a bit of a good thing that the gelding wasn’t as big as Daisy. Because not even Arthur Morgan was strong enough in the wrong arm to lift a skinny kid onto the back of a horse when the kid couldn’t help.

They were halfway to town when John opened his mouth again. “What’s his name?” He asked, hand fisted into the back of Arthur’s jacket. He pondered for a moment. “Copper, I think. Missus Harris didn’t have the best imagination when it came to names.”

John was quiet for a moment. “But his coat ain’t copper. It ain’t even red.” He pointed out and Arthur barked a laugh, startling the gelding into a nervous gallop. “Easy, boy.” He calmed and turned his head slightly toward the kid again. “I think she had him as a foal. Think maybe he was red back then.” He said and saw how John’s eyes strayed away in thought.

“You’ll get your own horse in no time, kid.” He said, spurring on the horse until he saw the outline of the town just up ahead. “I hope so.” He said, voice cracking.

“What do we need here? I can-” Arthur silenced him with a hand. “You’re not doing a damn thing other that walk nicely and calmly with me into the store, get what we’re here for and then walk just as nicely out again.” John slumped where he sat, releasing his grip on Arthur’s jacket just a little.

“You need help off?”

He’d barely asked the question before the youth was off and staring at him, face still a little pale and a strain in his breathing. “Alright.” He muttered, hitched the gelding, and walked into the store with what little money they’d gotten from the camp.

“Anything green and any cheap type of meat you can find, and apples if you find any. I’ll be over here.” He called to the kid already browsing the shelves. The shopkeeper eyed John warily, leaning on his elbow as the kid itched his nose. “Broke his arm.” Arthur replied when the shopkeeper looked to him, the bulge of the kid’s arm visible under the shirt.

Browsing the catalogue, Arthur picked out the shaving knife he needed, the other one lost in the snow somewhere, and was ready to pay when the door swung open and the kid was gone. Tossing money on the counter, he was out the door before it had time to swing shut and bring the shopkeeper after John with a shotgun, and sprinting down the muddy streets in search of a one-armed kid.

You’d think he wouldn’t be that hard to find, but in a town where most everyone dresses the same, it was a much tougher task than he’d at first anticipated.

A breakthrough in the search, however, came soon enough from behind the saloon, when the same yell he’d heard that morning rose up and startled as much people as horses. Seething, he came up behind the saloon, ready to call out the kid for ruining a plan that wasn’t even a plan, but stopped short of seeing the kid swinging a fist.

Not aimed at him, of course, but it caught him off guard, nonetheless.

The man spinning in a circle around the boy, staying well out of his reach, was laughing and mocking in a manner Arthur knew, maybe more than most, would send the kid into a frenzy. And, upon further inspection, the man wasn’t even a man.

The boy was at least a foot or two taller than John and probably just a few years older, but his knuckles were just as bloody and his hair just as unkempt. His breathing, however, was several breaths lighter than John’s, and was more than just a telltale sign that the taller boy had hit right where it hurt the most at the moment.

“Break it off, you two.” He called, stepping forward just as John swung a fist, almost connecting with the other boy’s ribs. Hauling John away with a hand to his shoulder, he turned to the other boy with a look that was everything but kind.

The boy seemed to deflate at that, but there was still a hungry look in his eyes and Arthur raised his eyebrows at him. “And who the Hell are you supposed to be then?” The boy spat, fists loosening just a little. Instead of answering the question, Arthur dared a look back and saw unshed tears in a face changed with something dark.

Maybe he didn’t always like the kid, but those tears weren’t just tears of pain, and anger reared its ugly head in Arthur. Giving John a light shove, he turned to the other boy and turned his own hands into fists.

“Get the outta here.” He grumbled, working his jaw and trying his best to keep the anger back. And then the kid had the audacity to ask; “Why?”

“‘ _Why?_ ’ Why, because if you don’t, I’ll let you know just how many friends this here kid’s got that’ll just do about anything to keep him outta trouble. And I’m not talking about the nice kind of friends.” The kid paled a shade under the blood leaking from his nose.

“I’ll let you know that these are some mean sonuvabitches. And I doubt you wanna get to know a certain Miss Susan Grimshaw when she gets into one of her moods.” Maybe it was the anger laced in his voice or the threat of Susan Grimshaw, but either way the kid bolted, limping visibly on the leg where John’d gotten in a lucky hit.

He was still staring when he heard the muffled sniffling of John, hugging his broken arm against his body with his good one, and Arthur could’ve sworn something in him broke at the sight. “You alright?” He asked, approaching slowly, hands visible and relaxed in an attempt to sooth.

There wasn’t an immediate response, but there was a response in the form of a nose being blown into an open palm and between pinched fingers and the frantic drying of eyes. “Hey.” Arthur said and bent down, something he rarely had to do because the kid was getting taller every day and was always staring up at him anyways, trying his best to get the kid’s eyes.

“Yeah.” John whispered, nodding. His voice was strained, sounding so much like a kid when it broke in the middle and fighting to get past a visible lump in his throat. “No, you’re not.” Arthur whispered back, tilting the kid’s head up with a finger under his chin, looking into blue eyes that were currently swimming in tears.

“You don’t have to be okay right now, but we oughta get back to the store, so the keeper don’t sick the lawmen on us.” He raised to his feet, a hand on the kid’s shoulder and started to guide them toward the store when the kid decided to hide another sniffle as a cough in the crook of his arm.

 

***

 

The ride back to camp was different and the kid sat in front, fingers twisted white in the horse’s mane and his head bobbing in rhythm with every step. Camp was almost visible when Arthur slowed him down and stopped in a groove of young trees, shielding them from the afternoon sun. He was off before John could complain and tugged at the kid’s pant leg.

The kid turned and gave Arthur permission to help him off, but stopped a few steps into the groove to reach into his shirt. Hidden against his broken arm, was a can of jerky and two apples and Arthur couldn’t help but smile a little as John turned one of the apples toward Copper, who took it with a hungry look in his eyes.

“We gonna talk about that back there?” John bit his lip and didn’t look away from Copper’s happy chewing, juice spraying over John’s feet as the apple rolled across the ground. “No.” Was the short, clipped reply he got from the boy, who bent down and picked up the seeds left behind.

“Then what’re we gonna talk about?”

“Nothing.” John replied and stared up at a bird that decided to eavesdrop. “ _Nothing?_ Mentioning that nothin’ happened to Dutch about that eye of yours isn’t exactly gonna go easy.”

“Then we don’t mention that either.” Arthur sighed over the kid’s stubborn reply, staring up at the same bird as John. “We just gonna say that you met an old friend who wasn’t exactly happy to see ya?”

John shook his head fiercely.

“Then what the Hell was that back there? I need something. And will you stop staring at that damn bird!” Arthur called loud enough for the bird to fly away and draw John’s eyes back to the ground. “I need something to know if I should go back and kill him or leave him to the law.”

John’s head whipped around, and his eyes were wide again, but this time there wasn’t any tears in them. “No.”

“And what the Hell does that mean?”

“It means no. I thought Hosea taught you how to read. N-O.” He spelled out the two-letter word and it took Arthur everything he had not to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Kid.”

“I ain’t a kid!” He turned his hands back into fists, lips closed tight as he stared at Arthur with a fury. “No? Then what the Hell is this behavior of yours then?” Arthur asked, waving a hand over his skinny frame.

John was silent for a moment. “Give me a horse, a gun and an hour and I’ll kill him myself.” Was the reply he eventually got, and it made Arthur choke on his own spit. “What? No.”

“Now who’s the one with the no’s?”

“You ain’t killing a kid, John.” Arthur’s voice raised a pitch. “But I’ve killed. You said so yourself, just before now.”

"Something I knew about just because we saved you from a Goddamn noose and you blurted it out one night and keep claiming it was an accident."

“This ain’t that much different.” John’s breath hitched as he stepped closer, the fingers of his broken arms closing painfully under his shirt.

“It’s completely different, John. You’re talking about killing someone who beat you up behind a saloon. Intent to kill without it being self-defense, is another name for murder last time I listened to the law.”

“And when the Hell did you listen to the law last, Arthur?” It got him quiet, and he had to admit that the kid had a point, but it still didn’t justify the kid’s intent to kill another boy.

He’d riled the kid up enough he realized when John took possession of the silence; “How do you know he just beat me up? You know I know him. I wouldn’t have chased after him otherwise.”

“I ain’t an idiot.” He whispered and Arthur’s anger disappeared with the words. “What’re you saying, John?” He whispered back, the kid meeting his eyes with resolve. He didn’t say anything.

And he didn’t need to either.

“Jesus Christ, John." He paused, before continuing. "I’ll kill him myself.” He grumbled, fingers around his gun before he even knew it himself. “Wait! No, don’t!” John yelled, fingers around Arthur’s hand before either had time to really react. Their eyes locked for a moment and John stuttered under Arthur’s gaze.

“Yo-you don’t have to kill him.”

“And why not, John? You don’t gotta tell me what happened.” He asked, loosening his fingers. John didn’t let up on his grip. “And I ain’t. But you don’t gotta kill him.”

Copper turned his head to their quiet conversation, having turned away and skittered away a bit when John’s cracking voice had reached an all new pitch, suddenly interested again. “I want to do it.” John said, letting Arthur’s hand go.

“Maybe not now, but I want to do it. But we’re not telling the others. Please.” John practically begged.

All Arthur did was nod.

 

***

 

“Thought you were just going shopping. What happened?” Hosea asked as he approached their horse, arms spread wide and a hand out toward John, whose eye was starting to swell and turn a shade of blue.

John looked sheepishly down at the horn of the saddle; fingers having created a braid in Copper’s mane. Arthur swung a leg off the saddle, tugging at John to allow him to help the boy down, and laughed.

“Master Rider Marston here saw a girl that wasn’t Miss Lila in the street and took quite a tumble off the horse.” John had enough theatrics in his body to turn a deep red and it was all laughs and an odd kind of joy before the young Miss in question came up behind Hosea and John, if even possible, turned even redder.

Arthur quietly saddled off Copper and drew a towel Hosea tossed him across his back, now and again daring a look back toward young Marston. The third time he looked he caught eyes with Hosea, standing not too far off with his own horse, who looked between Arthur and John with furrowed brows.

Arthur shook his head to the other man. It wasn’t their revenge to take.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "John didn't think he'd ever ridden as hard as he was since he’d stolen the sheriff's horse and damn near went down a canyon trying to escape them and trying not to fall off in the process.
> 
> (He had fallen off, even with all the training Arthur and Dutch had given him, but he’d gotten to keep the horse, so it wasn’t a too bad of a scenario.)
> 
> He didn't think he'd ever ridden as hard as he was now, because if he ever had, it hadn't exactly been in the matter of life and death."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm way too mean to these boys

John didn't think he'd ever ridden as hard as he was since he’d stolen the sheriff's horse and damn near went down a canyon trying to escape them and trying not to fall off in the process.

(He  _had_ fallen off, even with all the training Arthur and Dutch had given him, but he’d gotten to keep the horse, so it wasn’t a too bad of a scenario.)  
  
He didn't think he'd ever ridden as hard as he was now, because if he ever had, it hadn't exactly been in the matter of life and death.  
  
Daisy was dead.  
  
And Arthur had damn near joined her.

And the panic in Dutch’s voice between when Arthur’d gone down and when they’d managed to shove him onto John’s horse and send them away, had been so strong that John’s heart had damn near burst out of his chest.  
  
John spurred Callie's sides harder, pushing her close enough to her too-frequent bucking sprees, but today didn't seem to be a day for misbehavior. Instead, she bent her neck and kicked away harder with her hindlegs, sending them flying over a stone and further into the trees.

John couldn’t hear anyone following them anymore, but he couldn’t risk anything and so he kept his head low and willed them as close to camp as he dared before he might have to take a detour.

A detour they couldn’t risk.  
  
Arthur's hand was clutched tightly around the back of John's jacket, the hold the only thing keeping the older man upright and on the horse. His other arm was pressed loosely to his chest, both to keep the crushed arm from jolting too much in the speed they had and to keep the blood from pouring freely from the wound on his chest.  
  
"C’mon, girl." He whispered, bent slightly forward and feeling how the mare's muscles tensed beneath him as she took the last turn a few hundred feet before their camp would be visible, and a part of John knew immediately that they’d taken the turn too fast.  
  
"Hold on, Arthur!" He yelped, feeling how Callie started to tip, the added weight on her back too much for her legs. Bracing himself, he instinctively held the reins tighter and gripped Arthur's wrist in his other hand.  
  
Or tried to, at least.  
  
Arthur was down and gone before Callie had the time to find her footing, and the moment he realized that he pulled hard enough to force the mare into a skid turn, her frustrated and agitated whinnying simple bystanders in the muffled ringing in his ears. It took him too long to see Arthur, crumbled and unmoving on the path.  
  
"Arthur!" He swung his legs off the horse, landed too hard and stumbled the few feet to where his brother laid unmoving; a heap of red, black and blue and nowhere close enough to camp to be dragged. "Goddammit! You gotta get up!" He bent down, hoisting Arthur's good arm over his shoulder in an attempt to get him up.  
  
There was a brief flickering of eyelids, a soft mumble from his lips, and an ill-fated attempt to get on his feet. His bad arm flailed and he sucked in a breath and John cursed, because why did Arthur have to be so much bigger?  
  
Whistling, he forced the still skittish mare over to them, doing his best to get Arthur on his feet and closer to the back of the horse, or even get him to put a foot in the stirrup, because at least then it'd be a little easier.  
  
_"Mary..."_ came the slow mumble from Arthurs cracked lips, still coated in blood neither knew whose it was. "No. I ain’t Mary."  
  
An eye was cracked open, momentarily, and then shut again. Arthur heaved a sigh when John did his best to get him up, guiding his good hand toward the stirrup. "You’re too ugly to be ‘er." He muttered, fingers grasping the stirrup lazily, the usual strength gone with the blood on the ground.  
  
"Yeah, sure I am. And you’re too heavy, ya damn lug." He replied, doing his best to try and hoist Arthur onto the horse. It didn’t go very well.  
  
"Whatchu talkin’ about, boy." It wasn't a question, so John didn't bother with a reply and instead focused on getting Arthur the rest of the way to his feet.  
  
"If you don’t get up on this damn horse Imma leave ya out here. Ain’t a threat no more." John breathed, all air gone from his lungs.  
  
"Copper." Was the next mumble from Arthur. "Copper? Copper ain’t here. He-," he stopped when Arthur cried out when his other hand tried its best to grasp the saddle.  
  
Copper. Even if Copper the horse was small enough so that, maybe, John could get Arthur up without too much trouble, he was still too far away and John wasn't exactly the horse's favorite person, so there were some big doubts that the horse would even come if he whistled.  
  
Copper the dog, however, was familiar enough with his whistling to maybe come to his master’s aid.  
  
Placing two blood soaked fingers between his lips, he let out a three toned whistle that echoed between the trees, and he prayed to God that the dog would hear them.  
  
"C’mon." He whispered, both to Arthur and the trusty dog and maybe a little bit to himself, and threw a glance every now and then to the trees while he managed to get Arthur to his feet.  
  
He, however, didn’t stand long.  
  
No longer had he stood up until he swayed dangerously and fell backwards and had almost crushed John if he hadn't been prepared.  
  
"Goddammit." He muttered when Callie disappeared, her white tail swishing past a thorn bush and out of sight. "Why you gotta be so damn big, huh?" He asked Arthur, who, after his fall backward, had lost all sense of direction and fallen unconscious. It was a blessing in itself, but it did nothing to calm John’s panicked breaths and it didn’t help his shaking hands very much.  
  
John whistled again and he could’ve cried with joy if it hadn’t been for his job of keeping Arthur somewhat off the ground, when the familiar bark of a dog came from behind a giant oak.

To be fair, having a giant oak tree as their camp marker was as good a thing as it clearly wasn’t. They would have to leave soon enough, even without all the debacle at the bank, because they had already had to chase off two couples and a hunter in the short time they’d stayed there.

“Over here, boy.” John called as loud as he dared, seeing the dog’s fire red tail before anything else, poking up from the underbrush, wagging wildly. He was on them in moments, only stopping once when the smell of blood really hit him, and was soon enough licking Arthur’s face in a hopeful attempt at waking him up. It worked somewhat, with Arthur swatting a hand in the dog’s direction.

And, just as a part him had hoped, the muzzle of a shotgun poked from around the oak, gripped by well-trained hands and followed quickly by a voice that could scare the devil himself back down to Hell.

“Who the Hell are you?”

John would’ve dropped Arthur if it hadn’t been for his knee pushing into the small of the man’s back to keep him upright. “Miss Grimshaw! It’s me, John.” He called, watching as the shotgun was followed by graying hair and piercing eyes around the tree.

“Arthur got shot.” Was all he said, his throat suddenly tightening up and making it hard to speak. The shotgun was gone, and she was there, hands already trying to see where and what to do. “Mr. Harris! Get your ass and your horse over here!” She called over her shoulder and John watched as Copper the horse came through the trees, his owner idly riding over.

Copper the dog was still trying to wake Arthur up.

“Hurry up, Goddammit!” John barked, watching as the man finally spurred the horse and reached their clearing. “How do you wanna do this? Get him up sitting?” Harris asked, dismounting and leading the horse over. His voice was anything but worried and John wanted to punch the man in his remaining teeth. He would’ve, if Miss Grimshaw hadn’t taken Arthur’s bad arm in her hands and the man had jolted awake and screamed and John had to quickly clamp a hand over his mouth, forcing him to be quiet.

“Stop biting! It’s just me!” He said, removing his hand for a moment before shoving Arthur’s neckerchief in between his teeth. “Shut up and bite that instead, then.” He mumbled, staring at the bitemark in his palm. It wasn’t a gunshot, but it sure as shit hurt.

“It would be best, but if we can’t we’re gonna have to lay him down.” Miss Grimshaw said, examining the arm before reaching around him and taking him from John, just enough so that he could crawl away from underneath him. “Mr. Harris, you grab his legs.” She ordered, nodding between the two of them. Sighing and nodding, Mr. Harris did as he was told and lifted them, and while Miss Grimshaw and John held one arm each and tried to alleviate the pain away from the bad one, they did, somehow, manage to get the much bigger man onto Copper’s bare back.

“Were you followed?” Miss Grimshaw asked, nodding down the path. John shook his head, but also shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I think I lost ‘em further back.”

“Take a look around anyway. Try an’ lead them away. We’ll take care of him.” John nodded over the order, gripped the shotgun Miss Grimshaw pushed into his arms and whistled for Copper the dog. He didn’t want to risk the dog’s life, but he was of good use when it came down to hunting. Or chase of any lawman that might be on their tail.

“C’mon, boy.” He whispered, throwing a glance over his shoulder for the backs heading to camp. They didn’t have to walk far before they had spooked three deers, a fox and two lawmen on horses.

Watching from his crouched position behind a tree, John saw how the lawmen searched the ground for whatever might’ve spooked the horses and heard how Copper growled deep in his throat. Usually a happy dog, it was unusual to see him with his hackles raised and teeth bared.

Remembering what had happened the last time he’d had climbed a tree, John chose to stay on the ground and instead crept around the trunk of the tree when one of the lawmen rounded it in search of the growling.

Copper, however, was faster.

He had a grip on the man’s arm before he had time to draw his gun, and John darted around the tree with the shotgun raised and aimed. “Cop.” He said, and the dog gave the man one last tug before he dropped down, teeth still bared, and anger still flared in his eyes.

“Back away. Slowly.” John pointed the gun between the men and nodded for the wounded man to back over to his friend, who was trying his best to keep the horse from bolting.

“Ain’t nothin’ here, gentlemen.” He said, neckerchief over his nose and mouth, muffling his words slightly.

“Ain’t nothin’, son. I see a wanted man.” The bitten man said, fingers twisting toward the gun. “I said there ain’t nothin’ here. Just a man and his dog out on a walk over his grounds.”

“This here ground belongs to the state of Montana.” John squinted his eyes at that. “Not before it didn’t. Used to be my family’s grounds, so I’d do the smart thing of backin’ all the way back to your Goddamn station.” He growled, doing his best to keep up the appearance of being a grown man, when he  _clearly_ _wasn’t_.

“What’s your name?” Asked the man on the horse, his hand resting on his gun. “Don’t matter.”

“Sure matters if this here’s your grounds, sir.” The lawman said and John thought for a moment. Hosea had told him something about the ground they were currently camping on and how it’d been owned by someone a long time ago before the state had taken it.

“Joe Milligan.” He decided, stepping forward half an inch to keep Copper back. “And you’re trespassing on Milligan property.” He inched the gun upward, leveling it on the man on the horse, because if he shot the other one, he would just run away, and John  _really_ didn’t have time for that.

The lawman opened his mouth and was about to reply when there was a sudden gunshot and he toppled headfirst onto the ground, blood soaking the ground. John didn’t have time to turn and see who had fired and instead fired a shot at the second man, moments before he almost managed to seize John by the throat.

“You alright?” Dutch said, out of breath and smoking gun still in hand, when he trotted over, watching John with searching eyes. “Fine.” John replied and cocked the gun, eyes travelling from the dead man over to Dutch.

Dutch holstered his gun before reaching down toward him, John gripping his arm and swinging himself onto the Count’s back. “Arthur?” Hosea asked, also out of breath from the ride over and eyes wide as bottlecaps.

“He’s back at camp. I don’t know.” He said and the worlds had barely left his mouth before he had to grip Dutch tightly to keep from falling off. Bent low over the horses, they avoided as many branches as they could, reaching camp through a shortcut John had discovered after another wild ride with Callie.

Miss Grimshaw reached them before they’d managed to dismount, her dress covered in blood and a rag in her hands. “How is he?” Dutch was the first to ask, not even bothering to hitch his horse once they stopped. John slid off and stayed back, too afraid to hear the answer.

“It’s bad, Dutch.” Was all she said and John bit down on his tongue. “But I think he’ll make it.”

“Thinking isn’t enough, Miss Grimshaw.” Dutch said, walking away from them without a second glance. Hosea was silent for a moment before he turned toward John.

“How are you, John?”

“ _Me?_ I’m not the one you should be askin’, Hosea.” He muttered, wiping dried blood from his cheek. “No, maybe not.” He paused and fetched the saddlebags from Silver Dollar’s back, the fabric bulging significantly.

“But you’re the one that brought him back here.”

John didn’t answer. “Don’t we have to move now?” He asked instead, leading the Count over to a hitching post. He was gonna have to find Callie soon or she’d never come back. Hosea nodded as he fiddled with the straps of the bag, evidently contemplating and planning.

“We’ll pack up tonight. But we gotta give Arthur the night. We’ll leave tomorrow.” John nodded and watched Hosea walk away, heading to join Dutch in Arthur’s tent.

John didn’t join them, and instead whistled for Copper and went into the trees again, a suspicion gnawing at the back of his head over where Callie could’ve gone.

He didn’t stay to listen to Miss Grimshaw’s whispered threats over who had shot her boy and he didn’t stay to listen to Hosea’s explanation over what had happened. And he sure as Hell wasn’t staying to see, but was sure as Hell imagining, the way Dutch stared blankly at the walls of the tent and praying to whatever listened that Arthur would be okay.

 

His suspicions over Callie’s whereabouts were correct and he soon enough found her grazing in a clearing they’d found earlier in the week when everyone else had gone scouting the town. (He’d found a couple there as well, and it went as well as one might imagine.)

She perked up when she heard him, trotting a little bit away before she saw that it was him. “Hey there, girl. It’s alright.” He calmed, keeping his hands open. He hushed when she started to rear, her agitation palpable when Copper came into view even if the dog was only interested in the hedgehog waddling a little further away.

“Good lady.” He muttered once he reached her, patting her nose and looking her over. She wasn’t hurt, so that was always something, but she was covered in enough blood to make John inwardly groan.

Because a dirty and bloody horse meant he’d have to go into the stream and wash her off.

“Alright then, missy. Let’s get you cleaned up.” He said, leading her through the trees and toward the water. Washing his own hands first and tossing the bloodstained jacket into the grass, he removed her saddle and filled the pail tucked in his bedroll and started pouring it down her back until her white coat shone a dull shade of pink. He was still rubbing the last of the blood out of her tail when he heard the snapping of a twig and the sharp bark of Copper.

Being quick on his feet had always been John’s advantage in situations such as this, but it didn’t help him much when his gun was tucked under his saddle and pushed up against a rock. Peering over the edge of the bank where he was crouched, he saw the distinct shape of a bowler hat coming into view, and he knew, without needing much other confirmation, that the man was law.

John was planning on staying quiet and have Callie look like yet another wild horse, when Copper barked again and advanced on the man. Maybe bringing him along this time was a bit of a mistake.

“Who are you?” He said, climbing up and over the edge, hands loose and open. The man looked up, eyes wide, and looked between John, the growling dog and the horse gleaming in the setting sun.

“What happened to that feller, then?” He asked and motioned with hand toward the mare. “Caught a deer. A little messier than it needed to be.” John replied, so damn tired of these lawmen.

The man looked around, clearly scouting for a deer carcass or any kind of meat. “Ain’t got nothing left of it, sir. Ate it, stored it and didn’t have time to clean her up before now.” He nodded toward Callie; the mare clearly more interested in the collecting algae than the conversation around her.

The man seemed somewhat satisfied and had almost turned all the way away when he asked John for his name. The second time in as many hours someone had asked him for his name.

“Joe Milligan, mister.” He replied, meeting his eyes with resolve. He was way too close to camp.

“Tell me, Mister Milligan; have you met two men around here by any chance? Law, with weapons and horses?” John acted along, furrowing his brows as he went closer to Callie and patted her absentmindedly. “No, sir. I haven’t. Sorry.” He shook his head.

The man sighed, said his thank yous and tipped his hat. He was almost to the trees when John reached his saddle and threw it on. He fastened the straps as much as he dared before swinging himself up and spurring her into a calm jog.

Maybe he was moving too fast, he thought later and threw a look back, but the man was gone, and he had got to move fast.

He reached camp just as Hosea was seating himself on Silver Dollar’s back, clearly riding out to scout for both John and any remaining law.

“We gotta go.” John hitched Callie at the post, drawing the attention of everyone close by. “You met anymore?” Hosea asked and swung off, a hand on the horse’s neck. John nodded. “One. Upstream.” Was all he said, and gave the shotgun back to Miss Grimshaw when she came out of Dutch’s tent.

Hosea was already shouting directions at Uncle, who’d clearly taken a break, when John stalked over to his tent and threw the flap open. He was somewhat prepared to see Dutch.

He wasn’t, however, prepared to see  _Dutch._

 

John and Arthur had always, since John became a permanent part of the gang, been regarded as Dutch’s sons and Dutch had more than once declared himself their father when it came to cover stories and John had more than once thought of Arthur as his brother. He wasn’t sure, but he was certain Arthur thought the same at times.

Dutch, usually so calm and resolved and clear headed, sat bent in his seat, elbows on knees and chin in his hands. He wasn’t crying, yet at least, but John knew he wasn’t far off.

But then again, John would’ve cried too if he’d had a son that was breathing with too much difficulty and was paler than a sheet.

The blood was gone, his clothes thrown away and bandages wrapped tightly around his chest. His arm was wrapped harder and pressed against his chest, fingers splayed awkwardly over the fabric. There was still some blood in his beard and his eyes were closed as if he was sleeping.

John stood there for several minutes, waiting for something, before he cleared his throat and almost sent Dutch through the roof. “I can watch him.” He whispered; voice low so that Arthur wouldn’t wake up.

“No, that’s alright. I’ll stay with him.” Dutch replied, returning to the posture he’d had before. John was quiet for a moment before he stepped forward, a cautious hand landing on Dutch’s shoulder. “Go, Dutch. He’ll be fine.”

Dutch rarely did as he was told by other people than Hosea and, to a fault, Miss Grimshaw, so John was surprised when he didn’t have to push further to get the older man to budge. There was a sigh, the creaking of a chair and the soft caressing of a hand on Arthur’s forehead, and then he was gone, the only proof he’d ever been there the smell of hyacinth he no doubt got from Miss Grimshaw.

John wiped his own eyes, unbuckling his weapons belt and dropping it beside his cot and sat down in the chair.

“Sorry ‘bout Daisy, Arthur.” He mumbled, fingers scratching the start of a beard he’d without a doubt get shit for in the coming days, if Arthur ever woke up enough without being delirious from pain or high from whatever Uncle put together.

 

***

 

 _“Sorry ‘bout Daisy, Arthur.”_ Were the words that drew him out of his pain induced sleep and into the real world, where it was just as much of a nightmare as everything else in this Goddamn world.

He was pretty sure he’d made a noise, because all of a sudden there was someone hushing near his ear and a rag placed over his forehead, trying to cool him down from the fever he no doubt had.

He cracked one eye open, barely seeing anything in the dull light, and caught a glimpse of greasy hair and blood streaked cheeks. “What happened to you?” He wheezed, trying his best not to pass out from talking of all things. John’s head shot up from where he’d been staring at his boots, eyes wide and jaw locked. Arthur frowned at the sight.

“ _‘What happened to you?’_ That seriously the first thing you’re askin’?”

“Ain’t nobody else here.” Arthur muttered and hissed when he tried to move his arm. He could barely feel it, and yet there was a constant ache coming from his gun arm. “What happened to me was that I had to drag you all the way from town and over to camp, all the while gettin’ shot at.” John replied, wiping and scratching at the blood on his cheek.

 

Arthur squinted at the ceiling, trying to remember anything,  _anything at all,_ but all that came to mind was everything before the sheriff had showed out of fucking nowhere. After that, his mind refused him and left him with a hitched breath.

Panic, sure. But why?

 

“You said something ‘bout Daisy.” He said, once his breath had calmed. John stopped wiping and looked at his hands. “What ‘bout her, Marston?”

John was silent a second too long and Arthur squeezed his eyes shut. His good hand came to rest over his eyes and kept the lights from the lantern and the moon away while John talked.

 

“We didn’t see how it happened. Not really, anyway. The two of you just went down.” John whispered, a hand supporting his head. “Had to take you with me while the others led them off.”

“They good?” Arthur whispered, because he didn’t trust his voice not to tremble if he spoke up. John nodded, the sound of fabric against skin the only source Arthur had for it. “We’re movin’ tomorrow.” The chair creaked under John and there was a thud when he sat down on his own cot, followed quickly by a sigh.

Arthur wasn’t quite sure what came over Marston, but it sure as Hell was unusual because if there was anything the kid wasn’t, it was thoughtful half the time.

He was an idiot, they both were, but Arthur was pretty sure none of them were exactly thoughtful.

 

“I can go back for her. Get your saddle. Somethin’ to remember her by.” He said to the night. Arthur didn’t reply and hoped his silence was enough for John to understand what he meant.

Silence meant no. At least in Arthur’s book.

John didn’t listen, or simply didn’t understand, because he was gone and replaced with Hosea come morning and he didn’t join them until midday, Callie weighed down by the extra weight of a chestnut saddle and double saddlebags.

Arthur just stared at him when he handed something over to Hosea, shifted the saddle over to the other wagon and took off ahead, scouting for whatever could be lurking further off. Arthur was too tired to care until Hosea stuck a plait of carefully braided horsehair in his hand, tied tightly with leather and the distinct smell of Daisy wafting toward him.

Arthur didn’t tell him, but that little trinket stayed with him until he handed the satchel over to Marston on the top of a mountain.


	3. forest for the trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Reckon they was scared you’d get eaten out here.”
> 
> Arthur raises his eyebrows at that and squints his eyes, the look known campwide.
> 
> “Or,” John counters, raises the branch in his hand like a sword. “They was just worried.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of my attempt at writing something sweet(ish), so I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Also, if it looks weird it was uploaded through my phone, so let me know if something looks wonky and I'll do my best to update/change it as best I can

"I get why  _I'm_ on mushroom duty, but why are  _you_ here?"   
  
Arthur waves a chanterelle in the air with his left hand, his right pressed against his chest in a sling. John looks up from the branches he’s moving, the brim of his well-worn hat falling over his eyes, and seems to ponder for a moment before he replies.

 

“Reckon they was scared you’d get eaten out here.”

 

Arthur raises his eyebrows at that and squints his eyes, the look known camp wide.

 

“Or,” John counters, raises the branch in his hand like a sword. “They was just worried.”

 

“ _They?_ ” Arthur asks and leans back on his heels, just barely avoiding tipping backward where he can’t catch himself. John’s mouth snaps shut and the branch lowers, because the glare he’s getting isn’t a very nice one.

 

“Dutch. Hosea.”

 

Arthur can’t say he was surprised, but he can’t help himself with asking one more question. “Not Miss Grimshaw?  _Now_ I’m hurt.”

 

John inhales through his mouth and it turns into a snort and he coughs lightly. “Think she was more relieved than worried that you’re finally outta camp.” He says, a shit-eating grin on his face.

Arthur, still leaned back on his heels, almost tips when John tosses a mushroom at him. He catches it and instantly drops it when the mucus of the rotten plant seeps out and coats his fingers with an odor he’d rather forget.

 

He’s seen blood and shit and whatnot, but a Goddamn plant is what gets him.

 

“Ah, for Chrissakes!” He growls, tossing his hand back and forth in an attempt to get rid of it. John trips on a branch he’d thrown behind himself in an attempt to get away from Arthur throwing the mushroom back at him, but he’s laughing too hard to avoid the tree next to it.

 

“I thought you was the nimbler one a’ us.” Arthur states, and wipes his hand on his pants while John tries to untangle himself from the tree he’d ended up hugging, nose visibly red after having collided with it. “In what world.” John mutters sheepishly, rubbing leftover bark from his nose.

 

“Prolly the world where you’re the one they send in to scout out the banks.”

 

“Well, I sure ain’t the one to shoot over this one though.” John replies and waves a hand over Arthur, who is now standing up and with mucus drying on his pantleg. “Nah, but someone sure as shit’s gonna get an earful of Hosea and Dutch.” He mumbles and crouches again, hissing when he jostles his arm, and starts to pick through their collection of edible plants, removing leaves and twigs and the occasional insect.

 

John scoffs and clears his throat, because they already know exactly who’s going to be sporting a black eye once they get back, given how Dutch had been fuming for days while Arthur’d tried not to die in his sleep and a certain someone had stayed as far away as possible. Mister Harris hadn’t been on the job with them since he’d most likely be recognized after his scouting job, bad at it as he was, but he was just as guilty as the rest of them.

 

 _If not more,_ was a thought that crept up on John whenever he set his eyes on Mister Harris at camp, still not sure what to think of the man.

 

“5000 ain’t such a bad haul, though.” John tries, because casual conversation has never been his thing even when he’s now lived with Arthur for the last four or so years, and he doesn’t expect more than a grumble in response. It’s exactly what he gets as well, because it’s apparently all Arthur can muster up between the bursts of pain.

 

“You thought of replacing Daisy yet?” He asks instead, back turned enough so that he can only see out of the corner of his eye, because he  _knows_ Arthur’s reaction. He  _knows_ the reply.

 

His eyes are closed and he’s breathing through his nose, slowly, because there’s not just pain. There are memories, nothing and then a shitload of confusion, and John doesn’t blame him, because he wouldn’t want to remember either if anything were to happen to Callie.

 

“Eventually. Not yet.” He almost whispers, opens his eyes and meets John’s over his shoulder. John mumbles a sorry and Arthur waves his hand, their own form of conversation when little needs to be said.

 

Arthur had tried to get John,  _anyone_ , to tell him what had happened when he’d gone down, but they’d all, for once in their lives, taken a vow of silence and promised not to tell when the wounds were still raw and Arthur was more lucid than coherent and eventually, Arthur had given up and started staring holes in the tent canvas and the trees until Hosea and Miss Grimshaw had the brilliant idea of sending them for local supplies.

 

Thinking back, John doubted he’d ever feel as afraid for Arthur as he’d done then. Watching him when everyone else slept and all he could do was dab his face with a cool and damp cloth and try to keep him from yelling all his fears to the world. (His one constant was always Daisy, maybe because he remembered her more in his pain, but there was also John’s own name, Copper, and Dutch and Hosea. It did rip his heart out most nights when he was jolted awake by Arthur’s thrashing and yelling, calling for something that had yet to be, in his dreams at least, to stop.)

 

But John, always the easily excited and skittish, was highly considering telling Arthur about what had actually happened, even if the gift he’d get back at camp was a cuffing from Miss Grimshaw and a stern look dealt equally between Dutch and Hosea and he’d probably be dealt the worst of jobs in the weeks to come.

 

Arthur’s looking at him when his trail of thought ends and he opens his mouth to actually tell him what had happened that day when everything went to shit, but Arthur’s simply shaking his head. John frowns and goes to ask why, but Arthur’s still shaking his head and looks down. He grabs the basket and turns his back, walking further into the growth of trees.

 

Maybe living with imaginary tellings is far better than the truth when there’s nothing else but nightmares.

  
***   
  
"I could poison you." John says and throws a handful of mushrooms down the basket next to Arthur. Arthur scoffs and wipes dirt from his pants as he stands up, picks up the basket and moves further into the woods where the chanterelles gleam golden against the green underbrush.   
  
"You wouldn't know the first thing how." Arthur calls back and crouches down just in time to avoid a fly agaric to the back of the head. He stares at it for a moment, the ugly red an odd constant in the shades of gold and green, and turns to scoff at him when another one lands him square in between the eyes and makes him stumble back in surprise.   
  
"Then I'll pester you to death with these bad mushrooms." John replies and chucks another one, this one barely missing Arthur, although it does breaks apart in midair and some of the pieces land themselves neatly on the brim of his hat.   
  
"There. Now you actually look like a troll." John almost laughs, grins instead, and grabs his fistfuls of good mushrooms (and a pinch of berries, but Arthur doesn't have to know about those) and walks over to drop them off. Arthur shakes his head to get rid of the intruding plants but eventually has to tap the hat against his knee rather forcefully.   
  
"And you look like a raccoon. But I wasn't gonna mention it." John does actually laugh at that, short and clipped and it's a motion that makes him squint his eyes and twist his mouth in a funny way, and it's always been enough, since John joined them anyhow, to get a laugh out of Arthur.   
  
Because a kid as full of shit as John Marston, was still a kid smarter than the whole damn county where they picked him up.

 

“You think we got enough?” John looks over the basket. “I reckon Miss Grimshaw’ll tell us otherwise.” Arthur groans and raises to his feet, placing his hat back on his head as he goes.

 

John thinks, but doesn’t say, that Miss Grimshaw most likely will  _not_ send them back out into the woods for mushroom picking once they got back, because Arthur is starting to sway and is paler than before under the growing beard.

 

“Well, let’s head back then.” He says instead and grips the wrapped handle in his hand, his eyes on Arthur. He’s looking into the distance and John knows that look.

 

“C’mon. Or I  _will_ pester ya to death with these.” He says and shakes the basket and turns to head toward camp, listening to the sounds of footsteps behind him.

 

There’s a sigh and a shuffle and the breaking of twigs but soon enough, Arthur flicks his fingers against the back of John’s hat and sends it tumbling off, John barely catching it and almost spilling the contents of the basket overboard.

 

“You drop that, and you’ll be picking by yerself next time.” Arthur says, clearly attempting at a joke and failing, but John can give him that for now. Had it been another time and other circumstances, then John  _would_ be picking the next batch by himself, Arthur no doubt leaving him behind.

 

And then there are times on the walk back to camp, the times where he's thought aloud to himself and, occasionally, to Hosea in the weeks that were, that comes to mind where he thinks he could’ve damn near been out here alone, had the difference been something other than that lawmen are terrible, really awful, shots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hold onto your hats, though, my good folk, because the next chapter (whenever that comes up, I have an outline at least) is going to be as angsty and as long as I can get it!


	4. Ashton I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It’s Hell on Earth, Martins thinks, until Malkin kicks open the doors, shoots the gun from a laughing man’s hands and Martins fires, without really looking, at the first dark clad shape he can find."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay!
> 
> This is the first part of maybe two or three parts, I'm not really sure yet; hope you enjoy!

It’s an early morning in a very early April when the Ashton National Bank opens its doors to the first of its customers and makes a name for itself by becoming the first ever bank opened in a town so far West of Saint Magdalene since its own opening. It also makes a name for itself by opening in a town that’s barely a town and which has little to contribute with past its fair share of drunkards and idiots.

Ashton, built around the foundation of an old plantation house burnt to the ground by the Northerners by the end of the war, took its name from the last fighting man to die on its streets, some five months after the war ended when everyone else had had the good fortune of moving away. William Ashton, of little meaning other than his death from being trampled by his own horse, stood in remembrance in a slightly smaller form in the stone circle erected outside what was to become the Bank, some odd twenty years later. His sword had been chipped off and stolen not even two years after his erection and his musket had been gone before he was even put up at all, so to say that Ashton had a good patron was like saying that the seas were full of white whales.

Mister Ashton’s house was now the town’s one and only shop, where one could buy anything and everything for the fair price of five dollars to the lowest and most useless things, and up to the awfully expensive and necessary shit of fifty. To say that the people of Ashton were greedy and cheap, was as much of an understatement as to say that Rip Van Winkle had missed just a couple of years.

Ashton wasn’t much of a livestock town, nothing like Valentine or Rhodes, but it was covered in just as much shit and grime as those. Ashton didn’t have many lawmen, but had, evidently, enough. No one ever got away with more than a few dollars from the store, and no one had yet to touch the bank.

And why on God’s green Earth the town eventually got its own bank, was a question not even the managers could tell themselves; their job mainly revolving around solving problems that either weren’t possible to solve or those that weren’t in their department to solve.

Over the years, from its opening day in 1886 until it had been rebuilt and enlarged in the matter of guards and security and the adding of the Cornwall Safe in 1896, the bank would have been robbed a total of five times; three, of which, Thomas Martins had been there to witness.

Five times in ten years, and by then you’d think security would’ve gotten that little bit better.

A year or so before the third one, and not even a month after the second, Martins' one of the five men let go of their positions on account of inebriation, common laziness and the art of being an altogether prick to anyone regardless of position. That, and the blatant execution by Officer Martins of Officer Teague for no apparent reason.

But, to his credit, Officer Martins had killed one of the robbers in the one robbery, and that was enough to earn him some more months of even more inebriation and needed rest before he either had to take up bounty hunting or take part in the lumber business. It was safe to say that he preferred neither.

Now, it wasn’t altogether his fault, he’d reasoned when he’d stood in front of the judge and the Sheriff and the whole Goddamn town; Officer Teague had crossed his line of fire when he’d taken aim at the robbers. Officer Teague, ( _I’m very sorry for your loss, ma’am)_ , had obviously not seen Martins when he’d taken aim and fired, but heard the crack of the gun and turned just in time for the bullet to pass in between the eyes.

It weren’t his fault. Not that that reasoning got him anywhere.

But then again, he’d been acquitted of his apparent crimes when he’d killed one of them.

 

( _“One of the robbers, Your Honor. Yessir, Your Honor. Shot him right between them ribs.”_

_“Then where’s the body, Mister Martins?”_

_“Why, he most likely went and died in them woods, Your Honor. Most likely picked up by those friends of his.”_ )

 

Two out of three robberies, and Officer Martins was sure he’d killed someone. There wasn’t any proof, but he was so sure of it. The lie others doubted but he believed, tasted all the sweeter when tasted on the brim of a bottle. He’d killed one of the bastards. He sure as shit had.

 

( _“I’m as sure as the sky is blue that I killed one of them!”_

_“The sky ain’t blue today. Meanin’ it’s some kinda lie.”_

_“It was blue just a second ago!”_

_“Then you’re just too fucking drunk to notice.”_ )

 

What Thomas Martins didn’t tell anyone, even when his tongue got loose and he rambled about everything from the way the pigs smelled and to the way the lady in the big manor house was mighty pretty, was that the robber he’d killed ( _“shot between them ribs, I tell ya!”_ ) had not even been a year older than his sister’s son.

But how was he to know, when the kid had been bundled up in rags and a bandana, hair plastered to a sweat drenched face under a hat curled at the brim? How was he to know; he, who had never taken aim at another living person in his life before that day, that it had been a kid?

Yes, maybe he’d gotten that little taste of death in him that day, but he still weren’t going around murdering folks. He weren’t shooting the urchins stealing his cabbages at three in the morning and he weren’t picking up his gun for other purposes than for show.

Yes, maybe he did kill Officer Teague that day. Maybe so. But that kid had died first; crawled away in pain in the evening sun and disappeared from view and died in the mud, and then Martins had turned his gun around, aimed at the man with the chequered bandana and shot Teague.

Teague deserved it, no doubt. But that kid didn’t; hadn’t even raised his gun, not even to threaten. As far as Martins knew, that kid hadn’t done nothing. Done nothing to deserve a bullet to the lung and an awful cough of blood up the throat.

Martins had been shot that day too. Taken one to the shoulder and counted his lucky stars, but it seemed to have been a pure miracle that he weren’t even deader than Teague; the man with the gun, scarce of a boy, had been pushed out the meager back door by another man and Martins wished, oh so desperately, that he could forget those eyes so filled with wrath.

Martins wished a lot of things; wished for his wife to come back from the dead, for his daughter to wish a word from him. He wished for that kid to stop screaming whenever he slept, and he dreamed of that man to stop looking at him.

If he ever got to meet the Devil, he expected his eyes to look like those.

It was a Goddamn miracle he wasn’t dead. A Goddamn fucking miracle that he hadn’t joined that kid.

And that, that right there, would be what would weigh down his soul when judgement came.

 

***

 

Thomas Martins might’ve been too old for the job when the offer first came through; he weren’t as quick as he’d once been and maybe he wasn’t as sharp anymore, but he could shoot better than any of the other men, even Teague, and that was the only reason why he was allowed to stay on.

Well, until that second robbery, at least.

The first, which had happened barely three weeks after the bank first opened, had been a bust. The men responsible, along with some ween of a girl which rosy cheeks and mud brown eyes, had gotten away with barely a hundred dollars and the Sheriff’s horse.

Martins had been outside, had set his sights on the men as they exited and had been the one to pick Officer Malkin up of the floor and push his gun back into his hands. He’d been the one to report to Teague, who’d then reported back to the Sheriff. Teague had been the one who’d come scurrying back to help with the cleanup, tail between his legs, and Martins had watched how the Sheriff had yelled himself raw over any signs of the horse thief.

 

( _“Screw the bank! Where’s my Goddamn horse? I paid top dollar for the damn thing!”_ )

 

Between two bottles of whiskey a month or so later, Malkin had relayed how a town further down South had gotten robbed, a store, sure, but robbed, nonetheless. One of the bastards had taken a tumble off the horse, may or may not have survived, but the store had been empty of anything worth something, and, Malkin assured him, one of the horses sounded awfully like the Sheriff’s horse.

Neither man, of course, wanted to be the one to tell the Sheriff that his horse had become part of some merry band of thieves. ‘Modern Day Robin Hood’, as Malkin came to call that gang before he’d passed out and drooled all over the newly polished wood. Maybe the Sheriff had heard about it anyway, Martins wondered, when in the days later the Sheriff seemed angrier than a pack of wolves.

It goes six months, and the Sheriff’s got himself a new horse; a beautiful chestnut mare with the temper of a pony and the stubbornness of a mule, and Martins has gone two weeks without a bottle in remembrance of his darling wife, God rest her soul, when he sees a chequered bandana once again.

Coincidence or not, Officer Martins locks eyes with the man, and they nod in greeting and passing and they both go on with their day. Until mid-noon, of course, because things are rarely simple it seems.

Teague curses up a storm, grips his repeater in gloved hands and crouches behind what can only be described as the worst of covers; cloth draped table, and fires off round after round once the men have broken the windows.

It’s Hell on Earth, Martins thinks, until Malkin kicks open the doors, shoots the gun from a laughing man’s hands and Martins fires, without really looking, at the first dark clad shape he can find.

It just so happens, that the shape with the dark clothes, without being a civilian, lets out a cry and a breath that sounds an awful like when his nephew broke his leg when he fell from the apple tree in the garden and Martins turned and makes the mistake of meeting the boy’s eyes.

Because that’s what he is.

Just a boy.

His eyes are wide and dark, and his left brow is slightly scarred. He’s dirty, sweaty and dressed in rags that are far too big for someone so small as him. He’s not old enough to have a voice that doesn’t break; he’s not old enough to be a man. He’s not old enough to be shot.

( _“He ain’t old enough to be dead.”_  He tells his bottle and the ghost of his dead wife.)

Had he stood up, perhaps he would’ve reached Martins’ chest. Crouched down as he is, however, hunkered behind the upturned tables of the waiting area, he’s no bigger than Missus Carlsen’s dog.

The kid,  _boy,_ stands and trips, falls flat on his face and it shoots his gun up and away. The shot has caught the attention of someone else, who now turns and fires once. He fires twice, Martins thinks, but he goes down before the second bullet can hit and scoots behind the opened door before anymore bullets can whizz pass.

He thinks he hears someone call a name, John maybe, and then the man with the gun is up and gone; the only proof that he was ever there the bullet in Martins’ shoulder. Martins forces himself upward, grips his gun and hears the unmistakable shouting from Teague; Martins is blind now, turns on his body’s command and fires.

He looks at the man he greeted before, and by God that is one Hell of an angry man, but he’s not the one he shoots. He’s not sure if he aims or if it’s by pure accident; either way, Theodore Teague is dead before anyone can blink twice.

The commotion is over soon enough; the safes are mostly empty, and the men are scattered to the wind and there’s a bright smear of blood and footprints gone into the woods. There’s no body to be found, but there’s sure as shit a whole lot of blood.

So, Thomas Martins doesn’t tell anyone about how he shot a kid.

He just tells everyone how he stopped a robbery from getting any worse. Tells them how he saved people’s investments in a town that barely had any money to start with and how Teague knew the line of work they all had.

Knew the danger they all faced.

He also tells them, mostly to the kids, how the robbers stole the Sheriff’s horse.

Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should be studying.
> 
> But cowboys are more fun.


	5. Ashton II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They are the diplomats; Hosea and Dutch. But boy can they get angry.
> 
> And boy do they know how to hate.

Arthur is angry.  Hosea is angry.

But Dutch, oh Dutch is downright furious.

There has only ever been one single time where Arthur has seen him madder than any pack of wolves in any known forest, and that had been in the aftermath of John’s supposed hanging.

There has only ever been one other time when Arthur has seen Dutch disappear and someone else step forward (although perhaps  _that’s_ the real Dutch, he just couldn’t see it then).

Last time Arthur had seen Dutch like this, someone had died.

 

(Maybe Arthur never really saw it until it was too late.)

 

Arthur’s movements are slow, careful and accompanied by a hushed voice and a gentle touch, and Hosea’s isn’t much different. The chestnut mare stomps the ground once before Arthur nips at her mane, and all she does then is dip her head and allow an easier slide-off for John.

Dutch doesn’t help them with the barely conscious kid, but Miss Grimshaw does, and she was halfway across the camp before anyone could get a word out.

Anyone, except for Dutch.

They’d all been in Dutch’s bad graces once or twice, enough so that Arthur knows that this is a completely different level of grace. This Dutch isn’t just mad, disappointed or even slightly annoyed.

This Dutch is hurt.

And Arthur almost would’ve pitied Mister Harris if the fool hadn’t had the guts to stand toe to toe with Dutch on a job he himself had scouted out. A job he himself had said didn’t require any more guns and would only carry a couple of guards. Arthur would’ve almost pitied him if it hadn’t been for the fact that Mister Harris was a Goddamn idiot.

Mister Harris the Idiot failed to mention the armada that followed in a town where everyone seemed half drunk and where no one seemed smart enough to tell a goat from a woman. Failed to mention, that perhaps it wasn’t the perfect first job for a kid barely over the age of fifteen, even though, in his own words,  _‘it’s perfect._ _It’s foolproof.’_.

If anyone can be called a fool, other than the one trying not to blink in Dutch’s presence, then it is all of them.

Arthur nods at Hosea once John’s stood on bent feet and the older man leaves John in the care of Miss Grimshaw and Missus Bessie. John trips without taking a step and the result is one he likely wouldn’t remember, but one he would regret if he ever asked. Arthur apologizes to the kid’s hitched breath, the jostling of his limbs when Arthur hooks one arm around his shoulder blades and another under his knees. Apologizes again before they’ve gotten back to the shared tent and then once more when he tries to settle John as upright as possible to remove his shirt. The ensuing whimpering only brings forth Arthur’s request for a knife, which he uses to easily enough slit open the thin fabric of his shirt.

Although it isn’t much of a shirt anymore.

It clings to his body in both sweat and blood and pus and Arthur’s trying his damndest not to get nauseated in any way or form. It works somewhat, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, but when he tries to assist further he’s shooed out and replaced with the two women. He only had to meet Miss Grimshaw’s eyes once to know that she wanted the man dead, and a look from Missus Bessie said much the same thing, although she seemed to share her husband’s affinity for justice.

But there weren’t anything  _just_ about this.

Arthur had tried to kill the drunk bastard in the bank, but little seemed to have come of it. He’d seen him drop, and that had been the end of that part it seemed, but Arthur’d been out the door before anything else could be done, a simple shove to the shoulder enough to send his legs going.

Dutch and Hosea had gotten away with enough, and had left the statement as such, and later found themselves hiding in an old barn off the southwest side of the town God forgot. An hour of waiting for tired old bloodhounds to find them that had resulted in an hour of worry.

An hour for them waiting in a barn, had been an hour of Arthur trying his best to find a kid in a town that shouldn’t have been bigger than a pigsty and filled with less shit, but somehow was filled to the brink in both shit and size. He’d snuck around the edges of the town, tracked at the best of his ability (which wasn’t much) from the blood in the grass and peeked through promising windows and open doors. He’d asked a blind man by the back of the saloon, who’d gladly pointed him in the wrong direction and Arthur himself had had to hide away in some cellar with watered down drinks that seemed to sell very badly once the law had marched on past.

It had taken Arthur Morgan an hour of searching, only to find his youngest brother-in-arms close to passed out in the cemetery; no doubt a place he could be fitting for at the state he was in, but it did make Arthur’s heart drop at the sight. (He wouldn’t have to go far in that case, if he were to have to bury him.

Especially given that he was already sitting in a freshly dug hole in the ground, abandoned no doubt due to the gunfight down the street.)

An hour of searching compressed into ten minutes of convincing the kid to stay alive long enough to get somewhere safe, and then turned into fifteen more minutes of searching for means of escape, given that the kid had landed himself in the middle of the town’s buildings. Twenty-five minutes of the longest hour and a half of Arthur’s life, almost culminating in someone dying.

The mare hitched and dozing by the hitching post had been a sight for sore eyes and adrenaline filled veins. He’d stuck John’s bandana in the kid’s mouth, just like the kid had done with him in the weeks before, and flung him as carefully up in the saddle as possible, swinging himself up as smoothly as possible.

John was tucked against Arthur’s chest, trapped between his arms and the reins, and Arthur hadn’t dared to send the horse into a gallop until he spotted a familiar-enough lawman and sent the horse sprinting. It had been a jolting enough of a ride to make John cry out past the fabric in his mouth, but Arthur didn’t slow down to calm down the pain no doubt raging through his lean frame, and only slowed the horse to a gentle trot when he caught sight of Callie’s familiar tail swishing beside Hosea’s Turkoman.

And, well. Now here they are.

Arthur’s reached the outside of the tent just as Hosea starts to wave a finger in Mister Harris’ face. They are the diplomats; Hosea and Dutch. But boy can they get angry.

And boy do they know how to hate.

Arthur knows little of what is being said, Mister Harris’ own voice rising above the others, but Arthur knows enough to march up and clock the man across the jaw, breaking the words in his mouth along with his teeth. Not enough to break the jaw, but enough to mean something.

“He dies; and this is all on you.” Arthur grumbles, bear in human form, and for once Hosea doesn’t step in to pull him back. The punch has sent Harris to the ground, and Arthur takes the opportunity to hand; a kick to the nose and then there’s a cry through the woods.

“This  _is all_ on him.” Dutch says, the father nowhere in sight. This is the leader and the would-be-king. This is just raw hurt and anger.

Harris is spitting blood when Arthur grips his collars and pulls him up, holds him about the neck in a way that says, simple as can be, that one wrong move might be his last. Dutch seems to contemplate him; the broken nose, the soon-to-be blackening around the eye.

Then he laughs.

It’s a low chuckle, born and bred from everything that wasn't joy, but it’s a trick of the light nonetheless; Mister Harris laughs too, and Dutch throws a single look Arthur’s way. There’s a nod and a silent understanding, same as ever. Hand across the neck, level the distance; follow the cry through the woods with another crack of stars before Harris’ devious eyes.

Rope plus tree plus starvation equals Mister Harris’ punishment until something else is to be done.

When something else is to be done, and there aren’t too many seeing eyes.

 

***

 

Dutch sends Miss Grimshaw and Miss Annabelle to scout out the damage they’d done to the little town of no importance, and they come back with the news that one of the lawmen are dead and that there was talk of a robber being dead as well.

Hosea tells them to let them believe the lie; that there’s little else to be done. Dutch simply stares at a sunburned Harris, trapped in the sun’s feverish warmth and the ants by his feet.

Arthur, who’s, for once, taken up the chore of nursemaid, isn’t near enough to hear Miss Grimshaw mention that the Sheriff has lost another horse, it’s description strikingly close to the horse now hitched next to John’s (who also sounded an awful lot like the Sheriff’s old, stolen horse). Arthur isn’t there to hear the talks of movement and the preparations that follows harshly shouted orders for scouts, but he’s there to hear John.

Hear John, after two full days of nothing other than wheezed breaths thanks to a bruised lung, who start to complain.

Not about the pain. No; the damn kid starts to complain about a  _song._

“Fuckin’ hate th’ song.” He mumbles into the canvas of the tent, head turned that way just to keep the sun from his eyes where it keeps peeking through a stubborn gap in the flap. “Which one?” Arthur asks and looks up from his journal, the list of potential names growing ever longer.

“Y’know.”

“Sure don’t.”

“That one.” John lifts a hand and seems to play something in the air, fingers dancing over nothing. Arthur drops the book in his lap and just stares.

“He get you in the head or somethin’? ‘Cause if you ain’t noticed I don’t speak mime.”

“It ain’t mime. ‘s that awful song.” Arthur drags an exasperated hand across his face and pauses it over his eyes.

“And which one’d that be?” As far as Arthur knows, John didn’t know the first thing about playing any kind of instrument other than what Missus Bessie’d taught him on the guitar, but from what John was mimicking it looked more like a piano than a guitar.

“They just kept playin’ it. It was so annoying.”

“Well, too bad you had to stay and listen to the hymns, brother.” John turned his head with some difficulty and stared at him from under slightly less greasy hair.

“It weren’t a hymn.” He grumped, bottom lip jutting out and away from the upper lip. “No? The psalms, then.”

“Ain’t they the same?” John frowned and squinted, looking younger than fifteen. Arthur met his eyes, shrugged and picked up the journal again.

“‘s the one ‘bout the lady.” He said eventually, looking at the canvas as if though it was the most interesting thing in the world. “What lady.” Arthur doesn’t ask and leans off the bunk and reaches into the coffer at the edge of it, picking up a book as he goes.

“Whatchu think of the name Boadicea?” He asks instead, turning the book in his hand to look at the cover, flicking through the pages.

“For what?”

“Horse.” The word seemed to get John’s attention, because he almost shot upright in glee, stopped halfway up when his lung seemed to catch up with him, and breathed out the question as best he could.

“What kind?” He asks, bent double enough to almost topple off the bed.

“Mare. Now, sit down before you fall off.” Arthur doesn’t look up when there’s a thud and a yelp, instead adding two strokes under the name  _Boadicea_ furthest down on the page.

John never was very good at taking orders from Arthur.

 

***

 

Dutch personally ties Copper the horse to the wagon, riderless and everything, close to a week after their whole little dance with the Ashton law. He personally pats the horse’s neck, feeds him a sugar cube and nods to Uncle to set them on their way.

John stares after Dutch and Arthur as they stay behind, guns holstered and knives undrawn, and squeezes Callie enough so that she keeps away from Copper the horse but close enough to not fall behind from the train of wagons. He throws a look back at them until the trees grows thick and a bullet cracks the silence, and he works his jaw until the two trots up behind them as if nothing happened.

As if a former friend hadn’t just gone and gotten himself killed by another man’s gun.

John doesn’t ask who shot, figures he knows, and only watches as Dutch takes the helm of their little train and watches as Arthur tosses a gun into the trees as if though it’s another rotten mushroom. John figures whose it was. He just doesn’t ask.

Unlike Arthur, he had avoided to break his arm, and is coherent enough when they set out that he’s allowed to ride. Slowly and forbidden to scout ahead, but he’s allowed to ride.

Copper the dog cocks his head from the wagon, stares John down with beady eyes and a slowly wagging tail. He doesn’t say anything, but his staring and his silence is enough for John to throw a look to Arthur.

“Your dog’s staring.”

“So?”

“Why’s he staring?”

“How am I supposed to know? He’s a dog. Smarter than the whole lotta us if you ask me.” Arthur says and tips his hat against the sun. John throws his head.

“Well, that ain’t what I asked you.”

“But it’s an answer. If you want an answer to your question, why don’t ask him?” Arthur points to the dog who’s still staring and wagging his tail.

“Hey, Cop! Why’re you looking at me like that? Thought Arthur already fed ya.” The dog cocks his head at John, turns around once and then back again and when Arthur looks next, it almost looks like John’s eyes are on their way out of his skull.

“What?” Arthur asks, pausing with the match in his hand and the cigarette between his lips.

“I hate your dog, Morgan.” Is all John has to say as he squeezes Callie’s sides and forces her into a canter, Miss Grimshaw soon enough shouting after him to slow down. Arthur simply stares after him with the cigarette lit in his mouth as Miss Annabelle starts singing about the drowning lady named Clementine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At some point in the canon storyline, there was a gangmember who betrayed them and eventually got killed for it in their camp. I played around with the idea a little, so I hope you enjoy how it turned out.
> 
> The whole thing about Harris betraying the gang is more or less implied rather than outright said, so yeah


	6. May 9th, 1911

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I guess it’s my way of saying that I miss you. In whatever state this letter can be read, wherever I wrote what, I hope you’ll know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ties into chapter one of this story and I know absolutely nothing about letter writing in the 20th century, so it is what it is

_ Beecher’s Hope, Great Plains, _

_ West Elizabeth _

_ May 9th, 1911 _

  
  


_ Arthur, _

 

_ You know I ain’t much of a writer. Never been, never will be. Especially not when it comes to writing stories. _

_ I ain’t never gonna be anyone of those fools that Jack reads nowadays. Remember when Hosea taught him, and how he would sometimes refuse? Saying it was boring, and sometimes even said that he didn’t need it. Was gonna be a gunslinger, he said. I didn’t tell you then, but it scared the hell out of me to hear him say that. I weren’t even sure he was even mine, and it still scared me. _

_ Now, you gotta get the boy away from book rather than get him to it, just so that Uncle can’t have an excuse not to do any work. Because if the boy ain’t, then he ain’t.  _

_ The logic of some folk. A damn wonder I haven’t thrown him out. But, then again, he’s the closest thing I got left of what once was. Aside from Abigail and Jack, of course, but you know what I mean. _

_ You asked me, nearly fifteen years ago, what I’d been doing the year I was gone. And I told you all kinds of crazy stories, and I know you didn’t believe a single one. Some were true, some weren’t. Some, I didn’t even tell. _

_ I told you about the bounties I tried and sometimes failed to bring in, that one time I almost drowned myself in a river because a muskie pulled me in, and I told you of the buck that stabbed me in the same damn place that bullet had, years before. I told you about the robbery upside that town in Kansas, but I never told you if I was part of it or not. Guess you have eternity trying to figure that one out, because I still ain’t gonna tell you. _

_ I told you most things, as I always had. As I always do, I guess. You were my brother after all. You  _ _ are _ _ my brother, no matter how many times I have to remind myself that you ain’t walking in through that door with that hat on your head and trying to outwit me. _

_ You always seemed so good at outwitting people but Hosea beat us to it, most of the time. _

_ What I didn’t tell you, and what I am gonna tell you now, was that I kinda did make it into the paper. No name and no photograph, not even a sketch, but something close enough. A mention, but not enough of one for anyone of you to come riding out to investigate. _

_ Remember all them years ago, when I tried getting you to climb a tree, because I was young and stupid and bored? That Goddamned day I broke my arm and you forced me into town on Mister Harris’ old horse with a name that didn’t fit? _

_ I killed him. I killed the kid behind the saloon. And I made it into the paper for it. God knows how many kids all grown up now woulda wanted to do that. Guess I got lucky in some way. You always did say I was the lucky one. _

_ But knowing my luck, the bastard had become himself a state marshal. Took me months to track him down, because he kept moving around, once I knew that I couldn’t go back to you people. Not at once, at least. I didn’t feel a need to show nothing. I just wanted something done I hadn’t thought about in a very long time. I didn’t do it for no one but myself and all those other kids I can’t even remember the name of. But I remember him, just fine. _

_ I did tell myself that Jack weren’t mine, even when Abigail gave him my name, but I figure a part of me did it for him too. I did it for Jack before I even knew why I’d do it for him. _

_ I found him, sitting on a horse right outside Saint Magdalene, a town I hope you never went to, smoking a cigar and looking just as proud as if some idiots had made him king, smiling as he was. Guess that was what he thought of himself, anyhow. A king over a village of idiots. _

_ He knew me the moment he laid eyes on me and he opened his mug to talk. I just shot him. _

_ I just shot him, Arthur. Because what else would I’ve done? I didn’t tell you about him, because what the hell would I’ve said? Dutch and Hosea always went on and on about how we shouldn’t kill folk in cold blood. But is it cold blood if the man’s been under your skin from the day you were nine? _

_ I shot him, and I don’t regret it. I shot him, and I made it into the paper for it. No nothing to tie me to myself, but it’s still there. Probably still a bounty out for me somewhere. I ain’t gonna go look, been long enough for Blackwater folk to forget, so might be even longer enough for Saint Magdalene folk to forget. But my luck ain’t the best, so I’ll stay on this side of the country. _

_ I ain’t saying you would’ve done the same, had it been you in my boots, because I hope you never were in my boots. It’s a figure of speech, but I still know it was you who put frogs in my boots that one time, don’t matter how many times you tried telling me it weren’t you.  _

_ I just hope you never were there, Arthur. _

_ All I’m saying with this letter, if you for some reason can read this wherever you are, is that I didn’t have nothing to prove, but I did it, so that you didn’t have to. I might’ve been young when you figured it out, but I knew you long enough to know when you were beyond angry. Angry was just a stage beneath, wasn’t it? Beneath what, I don’t even know. I’m just glad that angry was as far as you were willing to go when it was me who messed up. _

_ I don’t know how I’m gonna give this to you, bury it with you next time we make our way up there or just keep it and drag it to my own grave. Maybe you can read it then, if we ever wind up in the same place. If I can hope, I hope you’ll be there, Arthur. _

_ Twelve years is a long time, Arthur Morgan, even if I did spend fifteen of those before as someone you could torment without getting into trouble with the law. It’s a God awful long time without someone you figured would never leave. _

_ I guess it’s my way of saying that I miss you. In whatever state this letter can be read, wherever I wrote what, I hope you’ll know. _

_ I told you I wasn’t a writer. Least of all stories. Letters are shorter, supposedly sweeter, and goes to the point without talking too much about dragons and knights and round tables, or whatever exists in those books of Jack’s. Don’t laugh at this letter, because this is as good as I can do to tell you what you always seemed to ask. Maybe it don’t sound much like me, but here it is anyway. _

_ Don’t laugh at this either, but if I could choose, then I’d choose whatever place you and Hosea chose. You always were the smart ones. I know you’ve got this eternity thing all figured out, so I hope you’ll allow me in there too.  _

_ If I meet you in Hell or something promised just for us, then it won’t matter anyway. I’ll let you laugh. At least then it’ll mean something. _

 

_ John _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't actually know when or how this thing will end, so I'll leave the story as unfinished until I figure out something else to write in. Since it doesn't have an actual outline, then this is the final result of what began in chapter one
> 
> I also couldn't find a definitive timeline when it came to dates for Red Dead Redemption, so you can read is as either taking place before RDR1 happens or during the events of the first game


End file.
